(Untitled)

[turnedtoproust]

It’s all getting a bit ridiculous

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[patriotqueen]

Guy laughed and dropped the cigarette butt to the floor, extinguishing it with his shoe. "I've never been called it, no. Not really."

He recognised the confused look on the young man's face. "You've just arrived here, haven't you? That would explain the look of confusion on your face and the quoting of... Auden, if I'm not mistaken, in a rather dead-pan manner. Of course, Auden was never meant to be quoted in any other manner. Oh, well. Welcome."

[turnedtoproust]

"Here?" Surely, here must be more than that, a singular word. Scripps removes his jacket, finding that outerwear is seemingly passé at the moment, if not a burdensome weight. "And where am I? I can't have gone too far, you recognize Auden," he remarks, off-hand.

[patriotqueen]

"You'd be surprised," Guy said, and started the talk, the Welcome to Fuck All speech.

"You're nowhere," he started. "In the middle of it, to be precise. It's an island, a tropical one - safe for one month in the winter time. People arrive here from every place and every time you might imagine - period undefined. It's an extended vac that no one asked for. And we're stuck. All three hundred of us. In the mean time, we've built up a community of sorts; there's a school, free-for-all meals, a police force and will you believe it a council.

Some people call it Tabula Rasa, I call it a fucked up voodoo island. I imagine you'll find out soon enough why the latter is a much more suitable name for this place than the former. Welcome. Questions?" He asked with a grin.

[turnedtoproust]

"Is there no equivalent of Oxford, then?" Strange how it remains the point of order on Scripps' mind. Perhaps if the world were struck of all oasis and order, he'd still wonder at the presence of an establishment like Oxford and Cambridge, those haunted and esteemed halls that he's torturing himself to gain entrance into. "Because I had a really lovely turn of phrase I was planning on using in my entrance interviews."

[alittleofboth]

"Well, no one has ever quite put it that way," Anthony deadpanned. He was standing just outside the Compound with a cigarette poised between his fingers, and if he was surprised to see a young man appear out of nowhere and insult him, he didn't look it. He took a drag from his cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. "Good afternoon."

[turnedtoproust]

Scripps' attention turns to that most illicit of all contraband -- the cigarette. Perhaps his yearning shows on his face, but it's a passive desire that's been conditioned into him by his mates sneaking in a fag here and there, wherever possible. "Afternoon," he greets warily, fiddling with his already-bent collar. "No retort? I feel like I'm getting away scot-free."

[alittleofboth]

"Seems rather cruel, considering the day I imagine you must be having," Anthony returned. "Either that, or I'm just going soft." He eyed the boy and took out his cigarette case. Anthony might be growing older and more tired by the day, but he could recognize a hopeful look for that which a student could not have when he saw it. He opened the case and offered it to him. Auden wasn't usually the sort of thing that popped into people's minds when they magically appeared on tropical islands; maybe that was why he was feeling especially generous. "Or I could just be leaving you to fall into your own verbal traps, since you're off to such a good start. Dare I ask who the original recipient was meant to be?"

[turnedtoproust]

"You're a saviour," Scripps pronounces as he takes hold of the contraband, pressing it between his lips and leaning forward for a light. He's not in the habit of carrying about matches, mostly because he can always count on Jimmy for that. "The original recipient is a complacent fuck, indeed, in the habit of assuming that everyone about wants to sleep with him. It is going to catch up to him one day," he mumbles around the fag. "I'm just not entirely sure when that day will come. Surely before the end of times."

[phoinikothrix]

"I've been called worse," Francis remarks, looking up from his book with a bemused smirk at the young man now sitting next to him on the Compound steps. "Do you normally appear out of nowhere and start swearing at people, then?"

[turnedtoproust]

"Well, when you've got a talent, why hide it..." He trails off, giving the other bloke a circumspect evaluation as he tries to place himself, sweltering as he is. Instantly, he takes off the jacket, draping the wrinkled thing over his arm as he turns to his new seatmate. "I don't suppose you've got any clue how I've just managed that?"

[phoinikothrix]

He snorts softly at the blond's jesting retort, trying to recall that line from Epictetus--something about great natural talents and fine dispositions; Julian would know.

"If you were trying to be talented, I'd have attempted something a bit more original," he says instead, once the other young man has taken off his coat. "As for how you managed it, presuming you really did just appear here instead of unintentionally sneaking up on me while I was reading...it just happens, really. Nobody knows how, or why."

[turnedtoproust]

"Apparition is rare, given that I'm not the Holy Mother in a spring," he says, his words sounding terribly numb to his ears, as though he's speaking for the sake of saying anything. To stop would be to think and to think would be to begin to cope with a situation that he is unsure he wishes to handle. "Donald Scripps, of Sheffield," he introduces himself.

[off_the_ceiling]

"I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people more deserving of the term 'complacent' than I am," said Jess a little wryly, despite the fact that he was clearly a new arrival and those tended to require a little more understanding and finesse. "You're a little overdressed for a swim, unless you just like to watch."

[turnedtoproust]

Apart from Fiona, there is a terrible lack of beautiful women in Donald Scripps' day-to-day life. He's vowed to God that he'll remain chaste, of course, but he's made no such promise in the art of appreciation and suddenly there's a great deal to appreciate before him. "I've never been accused of being a voyeur so quickly, before," he says with a quirk of a smile. "Will you think less of me if I say that I would only watch to learn of what true beauty has been hiding from me all of my life?"

[off_the_ceiling]

"No," said Jess, "but I'm not sure I think more of you, either." Though she did think more of his grace under pressure, or maybe it just hadn't occurred to him to be freaked out yet. Some arrivals were a lot less traumatic than others. "Keep the flattery up, though, and we'll see if my opinion changes."

[turnedtoproust]

"I'm not really in the habit of being around many women," he admits, a sort of confession without the ritual of a blessing and a dank box in which to speak it. "All-boys school," he goes on. "Am I going too overboard? I'm not trying to go overboard."

[agirlnamedchuck]

This was certainly a new thing to happen to Charlotte Charles. Being shouted at was something that happened to everyone at some point, but having it happen without any sort of provocation that she could remember was definitely a new one. Standing in the middle of the kitchen with Eli on her arms she stared at the young man for a moment.

It was rather bard to think of what she should say. This was not all the unusual of a thing to happen. "Well, I am certain that you have good reasons for feeling that way." Her tone was gentle and placating as I she was talking done some large animal. "I am just not certain that you're aiming those words at me. Well you are among them at me but I don't quite thonkthat I am the one it is meant for. At least I hope not."

[turnedtoproust]

Scripps' mouth forms a perfect circle and he winces heavily. It's not only the woman in his midst, but to have allowed such free language in front of a baby -- Jesus may not be so forgiving in this case. Scripps can see a flood of Hail Marys in his future. "I can promise that I'd never say such a thing to someone like you," he assures, the edge of panic encroaching inch by inch, passing No Man's Land and nearer than ever before. "I'm sorry," he rushes the words. "Oh, Jesus, am I sorry."

[agirlnamedchuck]

Charlotte Charles ha certainly heard worse language and she was fairly certain that if Eli ever had a chance to know Aunt Lily he would hear it as well. Her brow furrowed at his reaction feeling sympathetic to the odd state this you g man had waltzed into. Or shouted himself into.

"It really is okay," she assured him with a smiled, bobbing on the balls of her feet to keep up a familiar motion for Eli. "I certainly understand the need to just let all out. You certainly couldn't have predicted that I was going to be the one to hear it."